Category Archives: Breads and Croutons

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The above note is courtesy of the Kitchenpants! tasting committee. Make this stuffing and you, too, could receive such reviews. The Ingredients: 3 Cups Cremini Mushrooms – Large Dice/Slice and omit the stems. 4 Sweet Italian Chicken Sausages – If you can, get these from the meat counter. You can use regular pork sausage, but chicken sausage tastes the same, and has a lot less fat in it.* 2 Cups Chopped Onion 3 Cloves of Garlic – Finely Chopped 1/2 Cup […]

Those who know me know that Thanksgiving and I have a stormy relationship. When I was little, I turned my nose up at turkey and stuffing…and we all know how I feel about the green beans and mashed potatoes that my mother tried to serve. My little kid self WAS into the cranberry jelly stuff from a can, but then my mother discovered how to cook real cranberry sauce, so that was that with the fruity part of the meal. […]

The thing about plates is…they get full. It’s been a busy several months, but I am back to the blog thankfully.* 1999: I’m 23 years old and I live in Normal, Illinois. Well, sort of…it’s a long story. I am finishing a degree in English at school in Chicago, and I spend my weekends working at Bennigan’s (I didn’t mess up the apostrophe there, promise) downstate. Like I said, it’s a long story and, of course, it involves a boy […]

My pre-race ritual is pretty simple: I wake up. I shower. I make sure that my running clothes match, and I curse at my racing bib (seriously, I hate racing bibs – they crinkle and rub and catch on everything and if the timing chip is on the bib, just yuck.) I grab my water and my Honey Stinger chews and an Uncrustable and I am out. Yes, an Uncrustable. You know, one of those little pre-made, processed sandwiches that you […]

This whole recipe started with a ploy to get out of eating peanut butter. Foodwise, peanut butter has always been sort of a booty-call food to me. In the world of Ali, a booty-call food is one that I eat for a purpose other than taste. Booty-call foods serve a simple purpose and unless I am seeking that purpose, I have no use for them. Peanut butter, I have found, is one of my best early-morning pre-run fuel foods… but, unless […]

Every family has a share of hilarious-to-us-but-you-just-had-to-be-there stories. You know the kind. These are the stories that families tell over and over and over again, laughing more hysterically with each retelling only to receive blank stares and subsequent polite half-smiles from anyone who didn’t participate in the original story. In my family, one such story is The Pole Bean Story. Cast of Characters: Dad – Ph.D – Knows his way around academic literature, but not around the produce section of […]

Not to make you self-conscious, but I can smell the tiniest bit of garlic from a mile away. True story. That Lean Cuisine that you ate for lunch? I smell it. Did you have Chinese for dinner last night? Oh yes, yes you did. Bruschetta? I am about to pass out from the odor. I have a love-hate relationship with garlic. I appreciate it for all of its noble deeds in flavoring, but the departing fragrance that oozes from the […]